Bayern Munich Frauen continued their stellar run of form and booked their place in the DFB-Pokal final.
The defending cup winners had beaten Borussia Dortmund, FC Ingolstadt, and Hamburger SV to reach the semifinals, where SGS Essen awaited them. The Bavarians were overwhelming favorites, having scored eight goals in their three Pokal games so far and not conceding any.
The Pokal being the Pokal, Essen were not going down without a fight, though. Arianna Caruso thought she had opened the scoring in the 22nd
minute with a cracking volley, but the offside flag bailed Essen out. Their luck would run out just before the half hour mark, though, when Giulia Gwinn performed a nifty backheel right into the path of Momoko Tanikawa, who opened the scoring.
Tanikawa then went from scorer to assister about ten minutes later, with her left-footed cross finding Pernille Harder’s towering header. There was a bit of fortune when goalkeeper Luisa Palmen made a mess of the ball, but in the end, Bayern were two goals to the good.
The game was effectively over by first half stoppage time, when the Essen defense failed to clear a loose ball properly, and Edna Imade pounced with a header of her own to put Bayern 3-0 up at halftime.
The second half was very uneventful, as Bayern were in no rush, so it took a little while for the crowd at the FC Bayern Campus to get excited again. In the 73rd minute, Imade continued her scintillating run of form with yet another header that found the back of the net, this time from a cross by Barbara Dunst. The score stayed at 4-0 until the end, and Bayern reached a third consecutive Pokal final.
The final will be held on the 14th of May at the RhineEnergieStadion in Cologne. Bayern will face record cup winners VfL Wolfsburg, who defeated Carl Zeiss Jena on penalties in the other semifinal. The women’s teams will now enter the April international break. Bayern’s next game is on the 22nd, when they travel to Berlin to face Union Berlin. Bayern can officially seal the Bundesliga title with a win.
